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So, I wonder how many of you remembered that FCPX turned 2 years old on June 21st.

Yup, That’s right 2 years with a number of updates and the soon to be arriving “NewMacPro” people are wondering when the updates will happen, even though Apple has confirmed that there is an official update to FCPX arriving at approximately the same time as the new desktop. Phil said it on stage, Apple focus on it in their PR messaging but now people are taking pictures of MacPro Screens on Apple.com and spreading them across social media.

Even Apple.com is telling us there will be a new version of FCPX this year.

Metadata is the new blackI am guessing most of these people did not watch the WWDC Keynote, or more specifically, the part where Craig Federighi showed the same Metadata Tagging like FCPX has had for almost 2 years at the FINDER level of OSX Mavericks. I think it is funny how that same type of info tagging was belittled and berated when FCPX first came out 2 yrs. ago in June 2011?

Yet Apple’s engineers sought to bring it full bore into the mainstream of OSX directly, wisely so I might add, so that now the power that I referred to in the first releases of FCPX have moved forward to the point that we will be using that power invisibly while you are working. Isn’t this what we all want, instead of blindly looking around the plethora of available drives with failed searches because we have all turned off journaling for external drives.

What does this mean?

We all watched as Apple took nothing short of a “ass-whoppin” in the media and on the internet about the changes to FCP when FCPX came to market. It took Apple months to add back some really basic functionality like outputting split audio tracks or using professional level monitoring and output for the Pro User. My Macworld.com review of FCPX was one of the more civil diatribes, while my comments on CreativeCow.net were something else altogether.

Move forward 2 years and that same Phil Schiller is talking live onstage talking at WWDC about a new MacPro and in the same breath is talking about FCPX being updated. The Metadata tagging originally featured in FCPX, is shown in a fully operational manner at the Finder Level in demonstrations of the next generation of the OSX.

I think that this means Apple may have something else in mind, for I see a workstation that functionally remembers where all my content is, keeps track of all of my projects, media and the assorted files that traverse my desk as a working pro. No more lost images or captions, client logo’s stay organized on the server and available instantly, content pre-identified by the associated metadata. { I wonder will Adobe meta-tags from Photoshop and Lightroom might be seen by OSX at some point }

Now that everyone you know has chimed in on the New MacPro, lets take a breath and look at reality, if you have been following Apple for any time at all, you know that they rarely if ever do what people think they will do.

Apple hardware has consistently gotten more unified, compact, and more refined. The iPhone has become a standard for all handsets, the Macbook Air stole the netbook market right out from underneath the PC world, then Apple finished it’s assault on the low end PC market by releasing the iPad, and even more than with the iPhone changed how we interface with devices, for the tablet was born and my computing was changed forever.

Apple’s sleek designonce more alienates.

Yes this is a radical departure from the existing product design, however some of the most Iconic of Apple’s hardware designs, The Cube, LUXO, the Candy Colored IMacs as well as the 20th Anniversary model all gave users iconic design, why does this Tube scare everyone so?

Because its different? Is that not what Apple has been about for a very long time? Get over it.

The New MacPro offers some stunning specs, albeit in a new way. Look Apple once again defined how users will interact with hardware, if you did not seem it wise to start embracing Thunderbolt, with this new MacPro, it is abundantly clear that it is and will be the future of device connectivity, with PC companies like HP fully behind Thunderbolt, the TB2 specs on this box ( Ok TUBE) blow me out the of the water.

Those TB2 ports can handle up to 36 peripheral devices, that can include storage, I/O to Firewire, Fibre or 10gE or SAS externally and the “3-4K Displays” Apple has been touting in the marketing

Inline storage moduleon the new MacPro

Memory Questions: The internal storage is defined as PCIe Flash, now for the unknowing, this is by a wide margin the fastest possible. This is accessing your main storage at the speed of a RAM disk. One interesting thing to note in the Apple approved photos is that they are only showing 1 storage module.

The funny thing I see is that both of those fixed AMD graphics cards appear to have a place to allow for a second PCIe Flash module. I am wondering about the price and volumes for that storage, today it’s very expensive. Current PCIe Flash storage is available from companies like Fusion Io and even online retailers like Other World Computing and it’s fairly expensive for all but power users. My guess is that since Apple is changing the marketplace once again, the cost for PCIe Flash modules will reduce as the demand increases.

Note the place for the inline PCIeFlash module in the middle of the right side Graphics card and space for the same type of module on the left is mysteriously open. When did Apple ever leave wasted space in a machine this compact

What’s Possible

One other thing to note is the mysteriously missing PCIe memory module that could / should be in the same location on the left side graphics card in all of the Apple PR images.

From personal experience there is never a lot of free space to waste internally on an Apple device I have opened in the last few years, so I am wondering if that “open space” might be useable as part of the yet unannounced “Build-To-Order possibilities?

The Form Factor Matters

I am stunned by the small size, because at roughly 10″x 7″ this thing small, geez 8 of them fit in the same space as the previous tower form factor, I am just not comfortable with a rolly-poly, tube shaped computer when a good deal of my workstation level projects happen onset or on the road and that cylindrical shape is fraught with desperation for anyone needed to physically mount the machine for portability. Rack mounted computers have become the norm for DIT’s and Loaders, yet the new form factor does nothing to solve issues for that specific market.

Cuda vs OpenCL

The Open CL vs Cuda debate is a separate issue to me completely. Adobe’s backbone based in the Nvidia’s “Cuda” processes is only a minor advantage over the current OpenCL code being utilized for Apple processors, now if we can add Nvidia back into the mix as part of the BTO options, this might actually keep many of those power users from finally jumping off the MacPro wagon and onto an HP workstation.

I for one am keeping my HP Z800 right where it’s at, it’s the most powerful workhorse in my office and offers me power and performance unrivaled. That does not mean I am giving up my Mac’s. It means I have to live in a performance based world and much like with my retina laptop, it may take a little time to get the New MacPro and all of the associated peripherals to make it out to be the workstation it wants to be.

Finally.

This machine can’t possible be anything more for most user, It will have the fastest internal architecture possible, the fastest external connectivity and a lot of it, while the user configurable options will be more limited that in the past, the future upgradability is undeniable. Lost in the design debate so far is that most “power” users never add or remove parts from their MacPro’s once they are configured, the only difference with the new Apple is they want to control that at the manufacturing stage for the highest quality possible.

Apple has once again broken new ground, even if I don’t initially like what it looks like. I am thinking I will start a new biz doing skins for the New MacPro.

AdobeMax kicked off in the Nokia Theatre yesterday in a wildly colorful and often humorous presentations launching what we have been calling Adobe”Next” since it’s public announcement at NAB.

So by now everyone knows that Adobe has abandoned the box in favor of the digital download format we all embrace on our phone and what Apple users were forced into using on their desktops a couple of years ago.

Frankly I could not be happier, I am not harried by not having a disk and being connected is becoming more and more a part of our working and lifestyles. IMHO The CreativeCloud versions of Adobe’s product lines is only disconcerting if you are a pirate or live a non-connective lifestyle.

Rich Harrington cutting his audio podcast while waiting for the show to begin at the Nokia Theatre.

I have been playing with a few of the soon to be released titles, with some of my tools becoming simpler to use, while others gained from their conversion. Photoshop’s ability to deal with “camera shake” looks as if it evolved from the wonderfully resourceful HDR toolset, while the added capabilities of direct accessing “CameraRaw” with a far greater level of control and adjustments.

We have all seen sneak peaks at what is in AfterEffects, Premiere and Speedgrade, but the Photoshop and the announcement that Illustrator now has “Touch Type” while enabled for touch surfaces, Touch Type really astounded me by allowing full access to the full vector information in a single character without having to separate or break apart the word.

Also astounding was the announcement that Typekit is now included in your Creative Cloud Membership, nothing like tossing in $10K in fonts as part of your online toolkit to stimulate the adoption

The stage was an impressive way to hide the single person on stage

Little surprised the audience at the Nokia Theatre more than the announcement of Project Mighty, a pen-based CreativeCloud connected device that can actually carry your preferences from device to device.

For current info on Project Mighty go to adobe.com/go/projectmighty

Day 3 of AdobeMax covers the next generation of innovative genius that Adobe has kept offering us. I cannot wait for the sneak previews.